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A wildfire that swept through the resort town of Lahaina on Hawaii’s Maui island has killed at least 36 people, authorities said, leaving behind smoldering ruins and forcing thousands to flee the onetime capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom.
Video footage showed neighborhoods and businesses razed and vehicles burned to a crisp across the western side of the U.S. island as the wildfires cut off most roads out of Lahaina. The town is one of Maui’s prime attractions, drawing 2 million tourists to the island each year, or about 80 percent of the island’s visitors.
The wildfires took most of Lahaina’s residents and visitors by surprise when they broke out late on Tuesday, forcing some to run for their lives and jump into the ocean to escape the fast-moving inferno.
Nicoangelo Knickerbocker, a 21-year-old resident of Lahaina, had just awoken from a nap on Tuesday evening when he saw the fires burning through his hometown. His mother and sister fled, while he and some and friends went to neighbors’ houses, helping people pack belongings and trying futilely to stem the flames with garden hoses.
“It was so hot all around me, I felt like my shirt was about to catch on fire,” he said from one of the four emergency shelters opened on the island. The shelters are housing more than 2,100 people, Hawaii News Now said.
Knickerbocker heard cars and a gas station explode, and soon after fled the town with his father, bringing with them only the clothes they were wearing and the family dog. “It sounded like a war was going on,” he said.
At least 20 people suffered serious burns, and several were airlifted to Oahu for medical treatment, while more than 11,000 visitors were evacuated from Maui, Ed Sniffen of the Hawaii Department of Transportation said late on Wednesday.
Though at least 16 roads were closed, the airport was operating fully, he said.
Most of the roughly 400 evacuees at the War Memorial shelter on Thursday morning had arrived in shock, with an “empty look,” said Dr. Gerald Tariao Montano, a pediatrician who volunteered to work a six-hour shift on Wednesday night.
“Some haven’t fully grasped that they lost everything,” he said. He pleaded for donations of clothes, supplies, food, baby formula and diapers.
Governor Josh Green said Hawaii had not seen such widespread disaster and death since 1960, one year after it became a U.S. state, when a tsunami killed 61 people.
The fate of some of Lahaina’s cultural treasures remains unclear. The historic 60-foot(18-meter)-tall banyan tree marking the spot where Hawaiian King Kamehameha III’s 19th-century palace stood was still standing, though some of its boughs appeared charred, according to a Reuters witness.
Some 271 structures were damaged or destroyed, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported, citing official reports from flyovers conducted by the U.S. Civil Air Patrol and the Maui Fire Department.
“We will need to rebuild the entirety of Lahaina, I believe,” Governor Green told KHON 2, a local Fox affiliate.
Wiping away tears, he said he expected the next few days to be “incredibly traumatizing” as firefighters discovered more victims.
U.S. President Joe Biden approved a disaster declaration for Hawaii, allowing affected individuals and business owners to apply for federal housing and economic recovery grants, the White House said in a statement.
The cause of the Maui wildfires has yet to be determined, officials said, but the National Weather Service said dry vegetation, strong winds, and low humidity fueled them.
Wildfires occur every year in Hawaii, according to Thomas Smith, an environmental geography professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science, but this year’s fires are burning faster and bigger than usual.
Reuters